Reuse plans are rare, leaving most grand old buildings deteriorate

Sunday

They sit around, unused and practically unnoticed by passersby, part of the landscape.

They are the white elephants of SouthCoast, large and often grand buildings from days gone by, empty and waiting for for redevelopment.

Such plans, however, are far and few between — at least when it comes to concrete details.

Across the region, the potential reuse of buildings that are lauded by many as historic gems remains tentative at best.

THE NEW BEDFORD ARMORY: A turn-of-the-century castle in the city

A New Bedford landmark, the castle-like armory had a 99-year run with the Massachusetts National Guard. Completed in 1904, it has been empty since 2003 and suffered major fire damage in 2009.

After the fire, the state fast-tracked the building for repairs, declaring it an emergency situation, but the building remains unused.

A spokeswoman for the state’s Division of Capital and Asset Management said repairs to maintain the integrity and safety of the armory already have been completed, including repairs to roof drains on the third floor and wood framing in dilapidated areas and installation of wall studs that provide support to the building.

DCAM officials said the building has ongoing work inside and that its condition meant there could be no access for the media for this story.

Mayor Jon Mitchell said the armory’s roof was repaired last winter with the state and city working together to prevent structural compromises in the building.

But no definite plan has been made for the future.

Arthur Motta, the city’s former director of marketing and tourism, has researched the history of the armory and considered its potential uses.

Armories were built in industrial cities in the age of textile manufacturing as a way of reinforcing the police forces, particularly in the event of a labor strike by millworkers, he said.

With the armory, “New Bedford joined the ranks of other big cities,” Motta said. At the time, “the local papers noted our armory was far more beautiful and stunning than Fall River’s, which they felt was beautiful to begin with. There was this community pride aspect to it; it was a tribute to the municipality, one more grand public building for the common good.”

Its style is akin to a “Norman castle,” he said.

Other cities have reused their armories for various purposes. A nearby example is Pawtucket, Rhode Island, where the armory serves as an arts center with studios and rentals of its grand drill hall as an event venue.

The New Bedford Armory presents a challenge in its lack of off-street parking, said Derek Santos, executive director of the New Bedford Economic Development Center.

“We’re actively looking at potential development options, but we’re really only in the preliminary stages,” said Santos.

Mitchell said the armory is a key city landmark and he wants to see it preserved — and that he is open to who will own it, including the potential that the city could control it.

“We’re not looking to acquire new properties, but it is very important to me that it be preserved,” Mitchell said. As for other potential buyers, Mitchell said, “it remains to be seen. If there are private users that will agree to certain historic preservation covenants, selling it off may be the best way to go.”

Both Mitchell and Motta raised the same hope for the armory, though: since city voters approved the Community Preservation Act, a surcharge based on property taxes that funds projects including historic preservation, the armory could be an ideal contender for funds.

“It’s time to strike while the iron is hot on this asset and others, perhaps,” said Motta. “And with the Community Preservation Act now in place, that’s got to help ignite the fuse here.”

THE ORPHEUM THEATRE: “Once it’s gone, there’s no going back.”

The Orpheum Theatre is a city gem that serves as “a time capsule to the night the Titanic sank,” according to local preservation advocate Peggi Medeiros.

The theater opened on April 14, 1912, the night the Titanic struck an iceberg and went down in the North Atlantic, and when it closed in 1958, owners “just turned the key,” she said.

Few changes were made to the interior and it was never modernized, said Chuck Hauck, former president of Orpheum Rising Project Helpers (ORPH) Inc.

Last month, it was named among the most endangered historic buildings in the state by Preservation Massachusetts, part of an effort by the Waterfront Historic Area LeaguE as it has worked on getting the theater added to the National Register of Historic Places. That application will be submitted by year’s end, according to Teri Bernert, WHALE’s executive director.

In June, the state Legislature passed a bond bill that included $3 million to restore the Orpheum, sponsored by New Bedford state Rep. Antonio F.D. Cabral.

When the state House of Representatives first passed the bill, Cabral said he considered the theater an important cultural asset that could have a positive effect on its South End neighborhood.

The money is at least a step in a positive direction, according to Santos, and, if it is authorized with the governor’s signature, it could make a difference.

The fact that the theater has a nonprofit focused on its restoration is key to its future, Santos said. ORPH Inc. represents a major difference between the Orpheum’s status and the armory’s from an economic development standpoint because the armory has no group to advocate for it.

Mitchell said although it would be a pricy fix, that shouldn’t deter potential restoration projects because of the building’s historical value.

“I’d love to see the Orpheum get used again,” he said. “The problem with the Orpheum is that the cost of restoration would be very high. But I would like us to continue to keep an open mind about reuse despite the high cost, because once it’s gone, there’s no going back.”

UNUSED SCHOOLS: Quiet classrooms, empty playgrounds

As school buildings have aged, several communities across SouthCoast have consolidated, leaving the older ones vacant.

Dartmouth’s former Job Gidley School on Tucker Road, built in 1922, is the town’s oldest elementary school. It closed in 2007, but since then Town Meeting has rejected moves to sell the building.

Its parking lot still in use by the School Department, according to James Kiely, Dartmouth Public Schools’ business manager.

Staff of the School Department remain at the site regularly because of the storage of vehicles there, he said. In addition, the school remains alarmed and is used by police for training exercises.

Because samples of Legionella bacteria were found in the town police station’s hot water system in the spring of this year, causing police to relocate to a set of mobile units outside the station, Town Administrator David Cressman suggested Gidley as a potential new home for the station.

In New Bedford, empty schools include George Dunbar and Phillips Avenue elementary schools in the south and north ends of the city, respectively.

According to the mayor, both schools are being examined by a property committee that was established this year. Their futures remain undetermined.

“One of the problems we struggle with is how much of our existing building stock we can afford to maintain,” said Mitchell. “The city of New Bedford owns and maintains more than 90 buildings. The reality is that we won’t be able to keep them all.”

He said he has two concerns about the city’s facilities.

“One is that we keep in mind that many of these buildings are in neighborhoods that rely on them,” he said. “For the sake of neighborhood stability as well as for historic preservation, we need to find good future uses for them.”

The other concern Mitchell said he has is to ensure the price is right.

“The price to heat (the buildings) can run relatively high,” he said. “We have a committee that is working on analyzing future uses of empty buildings to come up with recommendations around whether they can be sold or whether they should be kept and put back into municipal use.”

Peggi Medeiros agreed that the school buildings are centers of neighborhoods.

“A parking lot doesn’t make a neighborhood, a building makes a neighborhood, as does what that building means to the people in the community around it," she said. "That’s why I’m so adamant that these buildings should be used by nonprofit groups in the community or become housing.”

CHURCHES LEFT BEHIND

Several churches across the area have closed as congregations dwindled.

Centre Trinity United Methodist Church, a grand mid-1800s church at the corner of County and Elm streets in New Bedford, is listed for sale.

Lori Nery, vice president of Coastal Commercial Real Estate, the company selling the church, said the asking price for the 11,400-square-foot building is $650,000.

The congregation has moved to a storefront on Union Street, much smaller than its enormous, pipe organ-equipped brick structure that stands imposing at the top of the hill on Elm Street. Two attempts to contact clergy at Centre Trinity were unsuccessful.

Shrinking membership has taken its toll at other houses of worship, as well.

In New Bedford, most attention has been paid to St. John the Baptist, a Catholic parish that is said to be the oldest Portuguese Catholic church in North America.

Closed in 2012 and absorbed into another South End parish, Our Lady of Mount Carmel, members of St. John the Baptist appealed to Catholic officials against the closure and consolidation of their congregation.

But in July the Apostolic Signatura, the Vatican’s judicial body, upheld the decision to keep the parish “suppressed.”

Another appeal by parishioners has been filed with the high court, challenging the Diocese of Fall River’s decision to relegate the building to secular use. So far, lower courts have supported the diocese’s decision, but the Apostolic Signatura meets only twice a year, according to diocese spokesman John Kearns.

Said Medeiros, “It’s probably the most historically important of all” the Catholic churches in New Bedford. “The more secular fear is that the diocese is just going to leave it as it is to deteriorate, say that there’s nothing they can do, and demolish it.”

According to Kearns, no decision can be made by the diocese until the high court rules on the parishioners’ appeal.

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.